2022 Short Course Worlds Picks And Previews: Women’s Individual Medley

2022 FINA SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Tuesday, December 13 to Sunday, December 18, 2022
• Melbourne Sports and Aquatics Centre, Melbourne, Australia
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The women’s individual medley races will be one of the most diverse event disciplines at the 2022 Short Course World Championships, with only a small amount of top contenders swimming multiple distances of IMs.

The 100 IM, void of stars like Beata Nelson, Anastasia Gorbenko, and Sarah Sjostrom, will be headlined by Beryl Gastadello, who is the fastest swimmer in the field by a significant margin and is looking for her first-ever worlds title. Similarly, the 400 IM is also missing a significant amount of big names, such as World Junior Record holder Summer McIntosh, but McIntosh’s Canadian countrymate Tessa Cieplucha will be there and ready to defend her title from last year.

On the other hand, the 200 IM is filled with almost every single star in the event from the last two years. In a stacked race between long course World Champion Alex Walsh, #2 performer of all-time Kaylee McKeown, short course World Champion Sydney Pickrem, Olympic gold medalist Yui Ohashi, and Olympic bronze medalist Kate Douglass, we could see historic times being thrown down and a very competitive race.

Women’s 100 IM

2022 Long Course Worlds Finalists Participating:

• N/A

2021 Short Course Worlds Finalists Participating:

• #2 Beryl Gastadello, France
• #5 Costanza Cocconcelli, Italy
• #6 Marrit Steenbergen, Netherlands

The women’s 100 IM is one of those events that has so much potential to be fast, but with a plethora of top names not competing, the field feels a bit watered down. There’s Sarah Sjostrom, the second-fastest performer of all time, who is sitting out of major international meets for the rest of the year to focus on the 2023 World Championships. Defending World Champion Anastasia Gorbenko won’t be competing at short course Worlds this year. American record holder Beata Nelson was left off USA’s short course Worlds roster by virtue of their controversial selection procedure that favors long course performances. In fact, this event is the only event where not a single American is entered, as none of the U.S. women have been faster than the FINA ‘A’ cut time of 59.65 between the meet qualification period of July 24, 2021 to November 5, 2022.

With so many contenders missing, who’s the favorite to win here then? The facts and figures point towards Frenchwoman Beryl Gastadello.

We haven’t seen anything particularly eye-popping from Gastadello after she switched training bases from the Coley Stickels-led pro group in Frisco, Texas to France this March, but a new best time in the 50 free at the 2022 European Championships indicates that things are moving in the right direction for her. Gastadello’s biggest highlight from the short course season was setting a season-best time of 57.76 in the 100 IM at the Toronto stop of the FINA World Cup, which is both 0.46 seconds off her personal best of 57.30 and faster than the 57.96 she swam to take silver at last year’s edition of short course Worlds.

As the only returning medalist from 2021, the third-best performer of all-time, and the fastest swimmer in the field by nearly half a second, Gastadello is an easy pick for gold in this race.

Behind Gastadello, our pick for silver is Dutch swimmer Marrit Steenbergen. After a breakout summer in the long course 200 IM and 100 free, the 100 IM seems like the perfect event where everything could come together for her. After finishing sixth in this event last year with a time of 58.74, Steenbergen has since then dropped from a 2:13.69 to a 2:10.60 in her LCM 200 IM, from a 53.97 to 53.24 in her 100 free, and from a 1:57.87 to a 1:56.36 in her 200 free—which indicates that she’s due for some major improvements in the 100 IM. She comes in as this year’s #7-ranked swimmer with a season-best of 58.67 and is the third seed with a PB of 58.15, but expect her to be a lot faster come time for short course Worlds.

The second-fastest swimmer in the field on paper is Louise Hansson, who set a personal best of 58.12 at the Indianapolis stop of the FINA World Cup. She didn’t race this event at last year’s meet but won medals in both backstroke and butterfly, so the 100 IM is the perfect opportunity for her to showcase her strengths in both strokes. Because of that, we are penning her in for the bronze medal.

Behind the top three, there’s a large field of swimmers who have yet to prove themselves in this event, but could make a statement swim. Two of them, Sydney Pickrem and Yu Yiting, were the gold and silver medalists in the 200 IM last year, but they did not swim the 100 IM. Yu and Pickrem are the fifth and sixth seeds in the event with best times of 58.27 and 58.34, respectively.

With Pickrem specializing primarily in 200-meter distances and higher, we are picking Yu to finish ahead of her, considering that she also raced in more sprinty events like the 100 fly at national and international meets (she swam a 58.96 100 fly to finish 24th at last year’s short course Worlds.

A swimmer ranked higher than both Yu and Pickrem is Canadian swimmer Mary-Sophie Harvey, who is seeded fourth with her best time of 58.24 and holds a season-best of 59.77. Like Steenbergen, she’s seen major improvement in her 200 IM this year, dropping from a 2:11.96 to 2:10.22 this summer. However, she was well off peak form at both the Commonwealth Games and the FINA World Cup stops, so we are leaving her out of the top five for now (it’s important to note that she said she was drugged following the World Championships, which left her with several upper-body injuries).

Italy’s Costanza Cocconcelli finished fifth in the 100 IM last year, and enters as the seventh seed with her personal best of 58.45.

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Women’s 200 IM

2022 Long Course Worlds Finalists Participating:

• #1 Alex Walsh, United States
• #2 Kaylee McKeown, Australia
• #6 Seoyeong Kim, South Korea
• #8 Mary-Sophie Harvey, Canada

2021 Short Course Worlds Finalists Participating:

• #1 Sydney Pickrem, Canada
• #2 Yu Yiting, China
• #3 Kate Douglass, United States

With so many of the world’s best competing in this race, the women’s 200 IM could potentially be the race of the meet. That being said, Alex Walsh‘s performances this year have vaulted her into the position as favorite.

Walsh’s best time of 2:06.14 from high school still would have finished sixth at last year’s short course Worlds, which is a testament to how she is and has always been good at the 200 IM. Since then, she has gone on to swim a 2:07.13 in the long course 200 IM, winning the 2022 World title by 1.44 seconds and becoming the #5 performer of all-time. She’s also fastest-ever 200 IMer in short course yards, with her US Open record time of 1:50.08 converting to a 2:02.18—which would make her the fastest swimmer in the field by over a second and just a few tenths off of Katinka Hosszu’s legendary world record time of 2:01.86.

So in other words, Walsh’s rise to stardom in long course and her dominance in short course yards makes her the favorite to win this race.

The battle for the minor medals is where things get a little more dicey—in fact, I switched around between Kate Douglass and Kaylee McKeown multiple times for my silver medal pick.

On one hand, Douglass is the top seed with a time of 2:04.24. She swam that time in the prelims to become the sixth-fastest performer of all-time, but then added 0.46 seconds to finish third in finals (although her prelims time would have won the whole thing). That race marked Douglass’s last 200 IM race, meaning that she will be racing the event for the first time in nearly a year come time for the start of this meet.

Douglass’s lack of recent swims in the 200 IM is precisely the reason why I’m choosing McKeown over her—in fact, she wasn’t even planning on swimming the event until over a month after the U.S. rosters were selected. McKeown, on the other hand, has raced the 200 IM on multiple occasions this year, including the long course World Championships and Commonwealth Games where she won silver medals. Her times from this summer indicate that she doesn’t have the same peak form that she did in 2020 and 2021, but she is still faster than Douglass has ever been in both long course and short course. That being said, McKeown being the second-fastest performer in history in short course (2:03.68) and the second-fastest performer this year (2:08.57)  in long course makes her our pick for silver, while Douglass’s gutsy 200 IM prelims swim from last year makes her our pick for bronze. Despite not swimming the event at all last year, I still believe the sky is the limit for Douglass in the 200 IM considering her strengths in free, fly, and breast, and she could surprise a few after gaining more international racing experience.

After failing to final at Worlds and pulling out of the Commonwealth Games, you could say that defending champion Sydney Pickrem had a relatively underwhelming long course season. That being said, she managed to start off the short course season strong by swimming a 2:05.23 season-best, which makes her this year’s fastest performer coming into the meet. However, with the field being more competitive than it was last year, there’s a good chance that Pickrem could match her 2021 winning time (2:04.29) and still miss the podium.

Out of all the contenders, Yu Yiting is the most intriguing one. She had a big 2021, breaking the World Junior Record in long course and taking silver at Short Course Worlds with a time of 2:04.48. However, after skipping long course worlds this year, we haven’t heard much from her. China’s COVID-19 situation still seems to be a cause of concern for many swimmers—as said in other previews, the pandemic likely negatively impacted Chinese swimmers’ performers this summer and the upcoming Chinese nationals being postponed doesn’t bode well for the winter season either.

Aside from the swimmers we picked to finish top five, there’s still plenty of names to be mentioned. One of them is Olympic champion Yui Ohashi, who had a relatively down 2022 and missed the 200 IM final at long course worlds. She’s seeded fourth with a time of 2:04.86, but her season-best of 2:07.09 isn’t indicative that she’ll be back in her 2021 shape anytime soon. 2020 Olympic fourth place finisher Abbie Wood has seen a bit more success this short course season, being the second-fastest 2022 performer in the field with a season-best of 2:05.49. She’s got a personal best of 2:04.77 from 2020, and if she can near that time, she could sneak into the the top five if the swimmers ranked above her aren’t at their best.

As mentioned in the 100 IM preview, keep an eye on Mary-Sophie Harvey, who dropped from a 2:11.96 to a 2:10.22 in the 200 IM long course this summer and finaled at Worlds. She’s the sixth seed with her best time of 2:05.15, and looks to break 2:05 for the first time in her career.

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Women’s 400 IM

2022 Long Course Worlds Finalists Participating:

• #6 Chutong Ge, China

2021 Short Course Worlds Finalists Participating:

• #1 Tessa Cieplucha, Canada
• #6 Ilaria Cusinato, Italy
• #7 Zsuzsanna Jakabos, Hungary

Like the 100 IM, the women’s 400 IM also has a lot of gaping holes. In fact, four of the the top five performers in 2022 (Summer McIntosh, Katie Grimes, Bailey Andison, Mio Narita) are not entered in this race, and neither are last year’s silver and bronze medalists Ellen Walshe and Melanie Margalis.

Overall, the fastest swimmer in the field is Sydney Pickrem, whose best time of 4:23.68 makes her the ninth-fastest performer of all-time. In addition, she’s also the fastest 2022 performer in the field with her season-best of 4:26.66. That being said, she has a track history of not swimming the 400 IM after being entered in it at major international meets (the 2021 Olympics, 2021 short course Worlds, 2022 Canadian Trials, just to name a few), so my confidence in her racing this event is low. There’s a possibility that she could pick up the event again with the competition being more thinned out this year, but I’m going to leave her out of the top five for now based on her recent trend.

With the high possibility of Pickrem scratching, the two swimmers with the next-fastest best times in the field are Tessa Cieplucha and Hali Flickinger. Cieplucha, the defending champion, set her lifetime best of 4:25.55 at last year’s short course worlds, while Flickinger swam her best time of 4:25.50 in the 2020 ISL final, just 0.05 seconds faster.

Despite the fact that Flickinger trains at Arizona State, a school which has seen unparalleled IM success this year by virtue of swimmers like Leon Marchand, Chase Kalisz, and Regan Smith, we are going with Cieplucha as the winner because her 400 IM success has been more recent. Flickinger hit her best time over two years ago, and hasn’t been within four seconds of it since. Meanwhile, Cieplucha went 4:25 just last year, which increases my confidence in her abilities to replicate that time.

Our pick for bronze is Abbie Wood, who’s the fifth-fastest 2022 performer in the field with her season-best of 4:31.60 and holds a best time of 4:25.65. Like Flickinger, she also went her PB in the 2020 ISL final, but her fastest swim since then was a 4:27.76. Wood has had a bit of a “mixed bag” year, as mono affected her performances at Worlds but she was able to bounce back and medal in the 200 IM at the Commonwealth Games. However, but there’s really only this many 4:25-point swimmers to choose from in a depleted field.

Following Wood, there’s a major dropoff in entry times. The other three swimmers who have been sub-4:30 are Zsuzsanna Jakabos, Ilario Cusinato and Yu Yiting, who hold best times of 4:25.61, 4:27.88 and 4:29.72, respectively. That being said, Jakabos hit her PB back in 2012 and hasn’t been sub-4:30 since 2019, whereas Cusinato swam her best in 2018 and has not been able to break 4:29 since. Both swimmers were in the final of the event last year though, so expect them to return again this year.

Jakabos did win her first international medal since 2016 this year (a silver medal in the 400 IM at the European Championships), so there’s potential that she could see a similar short course resurgence.

After placing ninth in prelims with a time of 4:33.29 and missing the finals at last year’s meet, Yu has seen major improvements in her 400 IM, dropping to a best time of 4:29.72 at Chinese Nationals this year. This year, she’s the second fastest performer behind Pickrem.

The only finalist from the 2022 long course World Championships that’s entered in this race is sixth-place finisher Ge Chutong of China, who is the field’s #4 ranked swimmer from 2022 with a season-best of 4:31.10.

Be on the lookout for American Leah Smith, who was a last-minute entry in this event. Her long course abilities in this event are stronger than her short course ones, considering that her LCM personal best of 4:33.86 is just over a second faster than her SCM personal best of 4:32.84. The last time she raced the 400 IM at short course Worlds in 2018, she missed the final, but there’s a chance she could sneak into the top 8 in a weakened field.

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